


tell me the truth, or tell me you're through

by WHIZZ3R



Category: Black Monday (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Black Monday, Compulsory Heterosexuality, F/F, How Do I Tag, Internal Conflict, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, basically the gist of it is mixing up platonic and romantic soulmates, blair struggles but figures it all out eventually, modern au ?? idk i guess, not all of it is angsty though just some of it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:13:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28113687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WHIZZ3R/pseuds/WHIZZ3R
Summary: at fourteen, like everyone else his age, blair pfaff woke up to two names permanently tattooed on his wrist. roger and tiffany. blair decides that the former must be his platonic soulmate, and the latter his romantic.eight years later, he's living the life his parents always wanted for him, and he's happy and in love with tiff. at least, that's what he tells himself. but deep down he wonders if she's really his romantic soulmate, after all.then, he meets roger harris, and despite blair's attempts to stop it, his life starts to unravel.
Relationships: Roger Harris & Corkie Swafford, Roger Harris/Blair Pfaff, Tiff Georgina & Blair Pfaff, Tiff Georgina/Corkie Swafford
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	1. a life in black and white

**Author's Note:**

> hey uhh,, welcome to this fic!! its a soulmates au and the gist of it is everyone has two soulmates who's names are permanently tattooed on their wrists when they turn fourteen and one is platonic and one is romantic but it doesnt specify whos who because youre just supposed to Know. so blair gets his names and is like "well im straight so obviously my romantic soulmate is tiff lol" and then he meets roger and hes like "wait wtf" but yeah idk sorry im bad at explaining things. anyways i hope you enjoy it :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey hi this is the first chapter of this fic!! uhh i hope you like it,, i know its a little short and i apologize for that

Blair Pfaff truly believes that he lives his life in black and white. He can see colour, sure, but this has nothing to do with what he can see and everything to do with what he can feel.

He loves his girlfriend, of that he’s sure, but ever since he’s started dating her he’s felt as though a black hole has opened up underneath him and swallowed him whole, leaving him hopeless and void of the light and colour that he so desperately needs.

He would never admit this to anyone, though. In fact, he won’t even admit it to himself. So on the outside Blair Pfaff lives a vibrant life full of colour. It’s a life that few have and that many are envious of, and it’s his life -- on the surface, at least.

People have always been jealous of Blair. He’d known his romantic soulmate before he’d even gotten her name on his wrist. This was an incredibly rare occurrence, but somehow, by pure luck, he’d already known her. She was Tiff Georgina, his closest friend, and she was his soulmate. On the day that he’d received his soulmate names, he’d seen her cursive writing on his wrist and rushed downstairs to show his mother, who was beaming with pride. Looking back, he doesn’t think he’s ever really made her that proud before. It’s almost funny that the one thing she was proud of him for was something that was completely out of his control, left only to fate itself.

Tiff’s parents were just as happy about this, however, they were less happy knowing that the soulmate in question was Blair. He and Tiff came from vastly different families -- Blair didn’t come from much, while Tiff’s family was very rich. They were nothing alike, and some thought that they were a bit of an odd couple. Blair would agree.

After that, Tiff and Blair became practically inseparable. From fourteen years of age to now, at twenty-two years old, they’d done practically everything together. Graduated high school and college. Gotten jobs. Bought an apartment. It seemed that in their lives, they’d turned every stone together.

Every stone except for one.

Blair has another name on his wrist. It’s his platonic soulmate. Written in neat, perfect lettering is Roger. Blair often wonders who Roger is. What does he look like? How old is he? Is he kind, or smart, or funny? He desperately wants the answers to these questions, but he fears that he may never know them. He used to spend all of his time thinking about Roger, like that name was the last shred of colour left in his life. He held onto it as tightly as he could. But over the years, he stopped spending so much time thinking about Roger. He stopped looking at his name. And then the light and colour was completely gone from his life, replaced with the black and white that he’s known for so long now.

Now, Blair is laying across the couch in his and Tiff’s apartment, his legs hanging over the right arm of the piece of furniture. He’s scrolling through his phone aimlessly, trying to find something to do. It’s his day off of work and as per usual, he’s bored out of his mind. With Tiff out of the house, he has no one to talk to, not that they speak all that much, anyway.

Oh, right. That’s the other dent in Blair’s make-believe world of colour. His steadily crumbling relationship with his girlfriend of eight years.

They both like to ignore it, but things have been declining quickly, and neither of them are making any effort to stop it. At fourteen, they were both sure that there was a spark. They were both completely and utterly positive that this was really love. And maybe it was, and maybe it wasn’t. Blair likes to believe that it was the former. Over time that spark, whatever it was, faded away, and they’d both just let it happen. Maybe deep down they wanted it to happen.

But Blair doesn’t dwell on this. It’s thoughts like these that he pushes as far out of his mind as he can, because they’re irrational. Maybe, he thinks, this is just what love becomes over time. A shell of its former self. It isn’t the same, and it never will be the same again. Maybe that’s how everyone feels. Maybe that’s just how the world works.

Or maybe it isn’t love and maybe it never was. Maybe Blair’s just ignoring the inevitable. Maybe he just doesn’t want to be a witness, and watch as all of this falls down around him.

He doesn’t think about that, though. Instead, he thinks about how he has Tiff, and how their lives aren’t perfect, and their love isn’t the same, but she’s still here, and hopefully that’s enough.

Blair spends most of his day pacing or playing games on his phone. He checks the news a couple of times and considers calling home to check up on his younger siblings, but ultimately decides against it. He’d rather not have to deal with his mother answering the phone. He can already hear her bothering him about getting engaged, something that Blair has always hated thinking about.

He wastes the day away until he hears their apartment door unlock. He sits up on the couch and watches as Tiff enters, carrying a bag of groceries with her. “Hi,” he says, and vaguely he wonders when he stopped getting up and kissing her to greet her.

“Hey, Blair,” Tiff replies, carrying the groceries to their kitchen with a huff. Blair makes room for her to sit next to him, but Tiff makes her way across the room to sit in a chair instead. Blair should probably be a little upset about this, but he isn’t. “How was your day?”

“Boring,” Blair replies, and he watches as Tiff pulls a random book from their bookshelf and absentmindedly flips through it. “What about you?”

Tiff doesn’t look up from the book. “It was fine,” she says, “I mostly just ran errands and walked around the city.”

“Oh,” Blair says. He can’t think of anything else to talk to her about, and the conversation ends there. Their voices are replaced with an uncomfortable and heavy silence. Blair shifts around on the couch. Eventually the silence puts him on edge, and he walks into the kitchen to start putting the groceries away.

For a while, the only noise heard is the occasional open and shut of the fridge and kitchen cupboards. Then, Tiff suddenly pipes up from her chair in the living room. “My parents called me today.”

Blair wants to groan or roll his eyes. He has no doubt that he’s about to hear about how much Tiff’s parents dislike Blair, and how the soulmates system definitely had a fuck-up when putting him and Tiff together. But instead of voicing his own dislike for the Georginas, he takes in a breath, hopes for the best, and says, “Oh, yeah? What did they have to say?” in the nicest tone he can muster.

“Not much, really. They asked how we were doing, talked about what they’ve been up to recently…” Tiff trails off, trying to think of what else they’d brought up. “Oh! That’s right, I knew I had something I needed to tell you. They’re hosting a gala next weekend, and they want us to attend.”

“A gala?” Blair says, sticking his head out from the kitchen. “Like… the Met Gala? Why?” He automatically dreads the idea of the event, but he knows that Tiff will inevitably drag him along with her, despite his best efforts to stay home. After all, she’s done it before.

Tiff laughs a little. “No, not like the Met Gala. I guess it’s for business, or something. They’re inviting the families of people that they’d like to partner with in the future. To be honest, I think they’re calling it a gala to make it sound more interesting than it actually will be.”

Blair sighs. “That’s great,” he mumbles, and he hopes that Tiff will recognize the clear sarcasm in his tone. If she does, she completely ignores it. “When is it, again?”

“Next Saturday night, at six,” Tiff stands up from her chair. “It’s formal, so wear your nicest suit. If we want to help my parents out, we have to make good impressions, you know?”

_I would rather do literally anything else. Why do you think I’d ever willingly help your parents?_ Blair thinks, but he doesn’t say that. Instead he plasters on a very artificial smile and mutters an “okay”, not really convinced that this is going to be okay at all.

“Great,” Tiff says, and she leaves the room, heading to their bedroom. Once again, Blair is completely and utterly alone, only accompanied by the dread for next Saturday looming over him. All he can do now is hope that the week passes at a crawl, so that he can  
cherish the time he has left before the day that will certainly be his doom.

He lets out a sigh and leaves the kitchen, sitting back down on the couch. He doesn’t think that he can take another night of grinning and bearing it in front of the Georginas. Tolerating their constant passive-aggressive comments is hard enough without them in the room. He can still vividly remember the last time he and Tiff had visited them, when they’d continually made fun of him for nearly breaking an expensive vase by accident. Overall, it was a complete and total disaster, and Blair has since done his best to avoid them.

“Please just let me catch the flu or something so that I don’t have to go,” Blair mutters to no one in particular. He puts his head in his hands and sighs. Hopefully the universe will side with him, just this once.

It doesn’t.


	2. the gala

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's business gala day and blair does not want to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! here's chapter two! its still kinda setting everything up so i apologize if its a little boring. also i had no ideas for blair and roger's interaction so it's also fairly brief HOWEVER they are going to be spending the entirety of the next chapter together!! anyways i hope you guys enjoy :D

Unfortunately for Blair, the week passes in record time and he doesn’t end up sick. He tries to fake a cold, but Tiff is less than fooled by his high school drama skills. “Come on, Blair,” she pleads with him, “I know you don’t _love_ my parents, but we’ll only be there for a couple of hours.”

“Fine, Tiff,” Blair says, sitting up on the bed that he was previously laying on and crossing his arms with a huff. “Only a couple of hours, though. You have to promise me that.”

“Okay.” Tiff makes her way across the bedroom and opens the door to the closet. “Now get ready, we have to leave soon if we want to be there in time.” Blair groans but follows her instructions, walking over to stand next to her and grabbing his suit from the closet. It’s just a regular tuxedo, but it’ll work.

As he gets ready, Blair can’t help but wonder who could be at the party. For the first time in what must be months, he finds himself glancing down at the other name on his wrist. _Roger._ Could Roger be there? Could he be living in New York City, too? The likelihood is so slim -- there are so many people in the world -- and yet Blair still finds himself feeling hopeful. Maybe, he thinks, this could be the day that he finally finds his other soulmate.

And then he hears Tiff calling for him to hurry up before they end up late, and he’s snapped out of it instantly. There’s no way that he could meet Roger, especially not tonight. Blair knows nothing about him, and there are billions of people all over the world. With a small sigh of defeat, Blair looks in the mirror, makes sure his bowtie is tied, and leaves his apartment with Tiff close behind. 

The drive there is a short one -- maybe about twenty minutes -- but it feels so much longer. He and Tiff hardly speak, apart from the occasional directions she gives him while he drives, though he already knows where to go. It almost feels like she’s looking for some excuse to say something.

When they arrive, Blair takes in a few deep breaths to prepare himself. They’ve arrived early, and no one else is there yet. As they walk up to the front door of the Georgina residence, Blair crosses his fingers for luck. He hesitates for a moment before knocking on the door. 

Henri Georgina answers the door, and he lights up when he sees his daughter. “Tiffany!” He exclaims, pulling her into a hug. Blair stands outside of the doorway awkwardly, wondering if he should make his presence known. “Your mother and I have missed you so much! She’s just in the kitchen now, and--” he cuts himself off after he sees Blair. “Oh. Blair.”

“Hi, Mr. Georgina,” Blair says, waving awkwardly. He is not on a first name basis with the Georginas, and he’d learned that only a few months into his relationship with Tiff. With the look of disdain on Henri’s face, Blair’s guessing that that won’t be changing anytime soon.

“We weren’t expecting you,” Henri says, and Blair knows that this isn’t true. He hates the condescending tone to Henri’s voice, but knows better than to come up with some snappy response. He bites his tongue, nods his head, and walks inside. 

The Georgina residence is still the same place that Blair remembers. It’s bold, eccentric, and in-your-face. In other words, it suits the people that live there very well. While Tiff goes to the kitchen to greet Jackie Georgina, Blair hangs around in the living room.

“Well, Pfaff, have you proposed to my daughter since our last visit?” Blair just manages to keep himself from sighing.

He turns to look at Henri, who’s staring at him expectantly. “No, I haven’t proposed to Tiff.” He says. 

“Not _yet._ ” Henri reminds him. Right. Not _yet._ It’s a friendly reminder to Blair that though Henri doesn’t like him, he fully expects Blair to follow through with this proposal, and soon. They’re soulmates, after all. Even Henri knows that nothing can change that.

Blair hesitates before confirming, “Not yet.” It’s like a promise that he has to do this, but it’s a promise that he desperately wants to break.

And that’s when it hits him.

Maybe the Georginas are the cause of the strain on Tiff and Blair’s relationship. Maybe it’s their fault that Blair doesn’t feel like he loves her in the way that he used to, and maybe that’s why he hates the idea of getting engaged. It makes perfect sense. He’ll have to talk to Tiff about it, but not right now. He takes in a breath. All he has to do is get through tonight, and then he can tell Tiff, and then their relationship can finally go back to normal. 

He watches Henri look at him, eyes full of judgement, before walking away after hearing the doorbell ring. More people are finally starting to show up. All Blair has to do is find a place where he can wait out the evening. He thinks of places to go to as more and more people file into the residence, finally settling on aimlessly standing next to the punchbowl.

He spends the first half of the evening watching people come and go. Some stop to chat with him, and a few take notice of his soulmate names, but none of them stay for very long. Though most of them know that he is Tiffany Georgina’s boyfriend, they seem to find him incredibly uninteresting.

Blair’s plan is working incredibly well until Tiff grabs him and pulls him aside. “We might have a potential business partner, so you need to come with me.”

“Why?” Blair asks, a little annoyed. “Your parents could care less about me. I’m not important to this deal at all.”

“Yes, you are,” Tiff replies. “Maybe you and my parents don’t get along, but a big part of business deals is looking like a happy family, so please, just _pretend_ to like them for five minutes, and then you can go back to the punchbowl.”

Blair sighs, but silently agrees. He walks with Tiff until they come across an older couple, -- who’s around Jackie and Henri’s age -- and their daughter, a young, tall girl with blonde hair. Tiff positions Blair to stand next to her, and Blair watches as the Georginas and the other couple converse. He can’t help but notice that Tiff is squeezing his hand. She doesn’t ever do this, and it makes Blair a little uncomfortable.

When all is said and done, the Georginas are thrilled. A business deal seems just in reach for them, but they request that Blair and Tiff get to know the couple’s daughter, just for good measure, and suddenly Tiff is dragging Blair along again, to sit at a table with the girl and someone else -- her boyfriend, Blair’s guessing. Awkwardly, he takes a seat, and Tiff begins to talk.

“So, since your parents could be working with mine in the future, my boyfriend and I thought it would be fun to get to know each other a little better!” She exclaims, before quickly adding, “I’m Tiffany, but everyone just calls me Tiff. Right, Blair?” Blair looks across the table at the girl and her boyfriend. Something seems to light up in both of their eyes, and Blair wonders why the boy is looking at him with so much interest. 

The girl extends her arm across the table to Tiff. Blair can see her names, but can’t quite make out what they are. The girl points at one of them. “Tiff. Is this your handwriting?” Suddenly it clicks for Blair. Tiff and the girl must be platonic soulmates. 

Tiff seems shocked, but she nods. “You’re Corkie!” She says, and the girl -- Corkie -- nods. Blair watches as they stand up to hug, overjoyed at finally meeting their other soulmate. Of course Tiff was the one lucky enough to meet her soulmate at this stupid gala. Of course it couldn’t have been Blair to meet Roger tonight. Unless… 

He turns back to look at Corkie’s boyfriend, who’s still staring at him with interest. The boy, realizing that Blair has noticed his staring, sits up with a start. “Tiffany said that your name was Blair, right?” he asks, a little awkwardly. 

“Yes,” Blair says, “That’s me.”

“I’m Roger. Roger Harris,” he replies, and Blair feels his heart skip a beat. Roger Harris? Roger, as in the name on his wrist? _His_ Roger? Blair stares at Roger for a minute, trying to speak but being unable to. Thankfully, Roger talks for him, showing Blair a name on his own wrist and quietly asking, “Is this you?” 

Blair leans over the table to get a better look, and sure enough, _Blair_ is written there in his very own handwriting. For a moment he’s silent, and for a split second he thinks that his world suddenly feels a little less dull, and then he finally speaks up. “Yeah. That’s my handwriting.”

Both of them sit in shock for a while, letting this information sink in. When it finally does, Roger breaks into a grin. “I can’t _believe_ this! I’ve been looking for you for so long, and I thought I’d never find you.”

“So did I! Holy _shit._ I’m so glad I showed up tonight,” Blair breathes. It still hasn’t quite sunk in for him that he’s found both of his soulmates, but he _has._ And suddenly, after all these years of what felt like nothing, he’s happy again. Happier than he’s been for a very long time.

"Well, I guess we'd better make up for lost time, then! Tell me about yourself," Roger says, and so Blair does.

Because Tiff and Corkie disappeared to who knows where, Blair spends the rest of the night with Roger. He completely forgets about only staying for a couple of hours, and when the time comes to go home, telling Tiff about her parents tearing them apart has completely slipped his mind. He and Roger exchange numbers, and then he’s back in the car with Tiff, dead silent.

The silence is broken by Tiff. “Pretty crazy that our platonic soulmates are dating each other and vice versa, huh?” She says. Blair just nods, and they fall back into uncomfortable silence, before Tiff speaks up again. “You know, meeting Roger was the happiest I’ve seen you in quite a while.”

“Yeah,” says Blair. He doesn’t elaborate. He thinks that it would likely be a bad idea to admit that he _was_ happier than he’d been in quite a while. 

“It was nice,” Tiff continues. “Blair, you know that all I want for you is to be happy, right?” 

Blair responds quickly. “Yeah, but I’m already happy with you, Tiff.”

“I know that,” she replies, but Blair can’t help but notice that she doesn’t sound entirely convinced. “I was just putting that out there, you know? It’s good that you’re happy. With me.” The last two words are added in almost as an afterthought, as if Tiff didn’t think that she should say them at all.

Blair nods again, glancing out of the window of the car. He can’t help but feel almost trapped, and as he stares out at the New York City streets he wonders what it would be like to be free.


	3. it's a date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! admittedly, this is my least favourite chapter so far. i kind of ran out of ideas halfway through writing it and i figured that eventually it'd get boring, so i cut it kind of short. it's also kind of a filler chapter :// however, i promise that the next two will be more interesting!! anyways, my apologies for the lack of length or action, but i hope that you like it :D

Tiff is away for the weekend. She’s visiting extended family that she hasn’t seen since she was a teenager, or something like that. If Blair’s honest, he wasn’t really paying attention when she told him she’d be leaving. He was thinking about Roger instead.

Since the gala, they’d been talking nearly every single day. Getting to know each other better, talking about their lives, laughing at stupid jokes over FaceTime. Blair can’t help but smile every time he gets a text, and he realizes that  _ this  _ is what a proper soulmates relationship is like. A proper  _ platonic  _ relationship, obviously, but a proper relationship all the same.

He’d been debating inviting Roger over, but after careful consideration, he realized that Tiff would likely be annoyed, and therefore wouldn’t want to be there. So, with Tiff gone, this is a perfect opportunity for them to talk face-to-face for the first time since the gala.

Shortly after Tiff leaves, he picks up his phone and dials his friend’s number. After two and a half rings, Roger picks up. “ _ Hello? _ ” His voice crackles through the speaker on Blair’s phone.

“Hey, Roger, it’s Blair,” Blair says, instantly realizing that Roger most definitely already knows who’s calling him. “I mean, I’m sure you knew that, but…”

Roger laughs a little. “ _ Hi, Blair, _ ” he replies, once he’s composed himself. “ _ What’s going on? _ ”

Blair runs a hand through his hair. “Well, Tiff just left the apartment for the weekend. She’s visiting extended family, or something. I don’t know. But I figured that you could come over.”

“ _ Oh, yeah! That sounds fun, _ ” Roger says. He sounds a little surprised. “ _ What time do you want me over? _ ”

Blair turns to look at the clock. It’s only ten-thirty in the morning. He contemplates for a moment. “Maybe around one o’clock this afternoon?”

“ _ Absolutely. What’s the address? _ ” Roger asks. Blair tells him, and he can hear a pencil scratching against paper while Roger writes it down. “ _ Okay, perfect. It’s a date! _ ”

Blair freezes for a moment, suddenly nervous, before awkwardly laughing off what Roger said. “Yeah. A ‘date’.” He tries to make the lighthearted sarcasm evident. “Anyways, I’ll see you then!” They say their goodbyes, and Blair hangs up. He pauses for a moment to process what just happened. All Roger said was ‘it’s a date’. Friends say that to each other all the time, so why did it make Blair so nervous? As he looks around the apartment, he brushes it off. He doesn’t have time to worry about that. He has an apartment to clean up.

With that, he gets to work. Three hours is a generous amount of time to get his apartment cleaned, and he’s about to make the most of it. He spends these hours dusting and straightening up, and while he works, he wonders what Roger will think of his apartment. Will he like it? Hate it? Worst of all, what will he think of  _ Blair _ ? Now that they’re really hanging out face-to-face, will Roger find him incredibly boring and then never want to speak to him again? No, that wouldn’t happen. Hopefully.

By the time he’s finished cleaning, one o’clock is just around the corner. He finally sits down after nearly three hours with a huff, before hearing the ring of the doorbell. He stands up and makes his way towards the door, opening it. Unsurprisingly, Roger is standing in the doorway, smiling. “Hello,” he says.

“Hi, Roger!” Blair moves out of the doorframe. “Come on in.” Roger nods his head and walks through the doorway, taking a look around the apartment. 

“You’ve got a nice apartment, Pfaff,” Roger comments as he walks around, stopping to look at photos of Blair and Tiff scattered along some shelves. 

Blair smiles from where he’s standing, still by the doorway. “Yeah, I’d agree. Tiff did most of the decorating. She’s very proud of her knowledge of fashion, so I don’t think she trusted me to do any of this.” Roger laughs a little at that. 

Blair moves to sit down on the couch again, and he watches as Roger picks up a picture frame and examines it. “Is this you and Tiff?” He asks, turning it so that it faces Blair. Blair cringes. It  _ is  _ him and Tiff, back when they were both sixteen.

“Oh, God, I should’ve hidden that one before you showed up,” he says, but he’s smiling. 

“No! You guys were cute kids. I wish I could say the same about myself,” Roger replies, carefully placing the photo back on the shelf. 

Blair shifts to sit cross-legged on the couch. “Got any photos of you and Corkie as teenagers?” He asks, tilting his head at Roger curiously. 

Roger shakes his head and sits down next to Blair. “Nope. We only started dating maybe two and a half years ago. You got lucky with Tiff, you know. Not many people meet one of their soulmates the day they get their names.”

Blair glances down at his wrist where his girlfriend’s name is written. He runs his thumb over it, like he has many, many, times, for reasons he doesn’t really understand. Maybe a part of him, pushed deep down, wants it to disappear. It doesn’t. “Yeah,” he says, quietly, “I guess I did get lucky, didn’t I?”

“You sure as hell did,” Roger says, jokingly ruffling Blair’s hair. Blair laughs and as he fakes annoyance, he can’t help but feel as though he and Roger have snapped together like two puzzle pieces, in a way that Blair and Tiff never quite did. 

“Yeah, well I guess I got lucky with you, too,” Blair adds in quietly.

Roger stares at Blair for a moment, and suddenly Blair wonders if he’s said the wrong thing. But Roger doesn’t seem to mind. “Aw, don’t tell me you’re going soft on me, Pfaff! And just after we met?” 

Blair laughs and crosses his arms. “In your  _ dreams _ , Harris,” he teases, and Roger laughs again. 

Once they finish messing around, Roger gets serious again. “So you and Tiff have been dating for eight years, and you guys aren’t engaged?”

Blair grimaces. “God, you sound like Tiff’s dad when you ask that. No, we aren’t engaged.” Henry’s voice rings in the back of his mind and he hesitantly adds, “Yet.”

Roger nods, smiling almost understandingly. “Huh. Yeah, I haven’t even considered getting engaged to Corkie yet, but I don’t think she’s really given it much thought, either. We haven’t really been dating for that long, though, so it’s probably still totally out of the question.”

“Yeah,” Blair says, but what he  _ wants  _ to say is,  _ I wish it could be out of the question for me, too. _

There’s a beat of silence before Roger asks, “Would you ever consider  _ not  _ getting engaged to Tiff?”

Blair sits up a little straighter at this question. “I mean, yeah, I’ve considered that before, but Mr. and Mrs. Georgina are practically breathing down my neck, and they don’t like me as is.”

“Take them completely out of the picture,” Roger says, “What then?”

Blair thinks about this for a moment. “Then I probably wouldn’t propose,” he finally decides. “I love Tiff, obviously, but I don’t think that weddings are the key to happiness, you know? Besides, we’re soulmates, so it really doesn’t matter that much.” And  _ sure _ , he thinks, that’s probably part of why engagement isn’t really on the table for him, but deep down he thinks that in reality the idea of something like that with Tiff  _ scares _ him, and he doesn’t really know why.

“I guess you’re right,” Roger says, leaning against the back of the couch. If he’s honest, he’s not really sure why he asked the question, but their moment of seriousness passes quickly and quietly, and soon enough they’re back to messing around.

The rest of their time together passes at what feels like the speed of light. One second Roger’s kicking Blair’s ass at Mario Kart, and the next he has to go home to Corkie. They say their goodbyes, and when Blair shuts the door, he can’t help but feel a little empty again.

When Tiff gets home the next evening, Blair can’t stop himself from thinking about that engagement conversation.  _ Should  _ he get engaged to Tiff? What if it was what she wanted and she just hadn’t been vocal about it?

Within all of these thoughts, a particular one played over and over again in the back of his mind. One that made him nervous for reasons that he couldn’t explain. Very distinctly, he could still hear his phone call with Roger. Maybe he was overthinking it, but he couldn’t stop thinking about three words.

_ It’s a date. _


End file.
